VBA: choosing dynamic block attributes

[CADenator]

Hello,

 

I have 4 blocks which I have made. 3 of the blocks have a single visibility attribute which have 16 possible choices. The final block is similar with only 4 choices (each corresponding to 4 of the 16 visibility state choices of the other blocks).

 

What I want to do is to automate the following task:

1. Open an existing file containing these block references layed out on the model space as required.

2. Select one combination of the visibility states

3. Save the file with a particular file name (indicating which visibility states have been selected)

4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the rest of the 16 visibility state combinations

 

This way, rather than maintaining 16 DWG files, if there is a change, I can update the blocks in the original file and then run this automation to update (recreate) all 16 files.

 

Because I am working with multiple files, I decided to go with VBA, not AutoLISP. If this is a bad decision, please tell me.

 

THE PROBLEM

No matter how I try to, I can't figure out how to get a handle to/variable for existing objects in the drawing. I know how to create a new line, or even a new block, but the blocks I am dealing with are too complicated (and not maintainable for that matter) to be created in hard code.

 

Sometimes it is possible to find the "block" I am after to manipulate, but this seems to me to be more the object "in the block editor" rather than the copy in the drawing itself (i.e. block reference).

 

How can I find an existing BlockReference object from within a drawing, so that I can manipulate the dynamic block properties I have created?

 

Thanks,

[BIGAL]

There are a lot of examples here for editing attributes using VBA its very simple to make new code to do change attributes to 1 or multiple blocks

here is a quick example to select all blocks the secondary criteria rem out looks for block name SCHEDTEXT

 

 
FilterDXFCode(0) = 0
FilterDXFVal(0) = "INSERT"
'FilterDXFCode(1) = 2
'FilterDXFVal(1) = "SCHEDTEXT"
Set SS = ThisDrawing.SelectionSets.Add("pit1sel")
SS.Select acSelectionSetAll, , , FilterDXFCode, FilterDXFVal

[CADenator]

There are a lot of examples here for editing attributes using VBA its very simple to make new code to do change attributes to 1 or multiple blocks

here is a quick example to select all blocks the secondary criteria rem out looks for block name SCHEDTEXT

 

Thank you for your help. I didn't get what you said right away. Now I have looked up help on filters and selection sets I understand a bit better. Just for future reference, punctuation is our friend

 

FilterDXFCode(0) = 0
FilterDXFVal(0) = "INSERT"

 

I have a question, what does this find? What type of entity is INSERT?

 

 

Set SS = ThisDrawing.SelectionSets.Add("pit1sel")

Also, what is "pit1sel"?

Thanks,

[CADenator]

Hello,

 

It seems I have confused myself. When I said attributes before, I didn't mean a text tag that you enter. I meant the selections you can make with a dynamic block reference.

 

How do you change what dynamic selections are made on a dynamic block reference?

 

Thanks,

[BIGAL]

Just a quick answer to cadenator

 

the insert value is the same as saying look for blocks

 

the pitsel1 is a name I have given to be used for the data list it could be anything the other modules have pitsel2 3 4 etc